ALBATROSS STORIES & LORE
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to use any of the material listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

1) Query: I know that the albatross is thought to house the souls of drowned sailors - but can anyone give me the bones of a folktale or legend about this? Please help - I need it for a story programme about the sea the has been commissioned for next month.
Jill L.
Response: The first thing that came to mind was the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
http://eserver.org/poetry/ancient-mariner.html
Here is some quick info with some possible lead to African and Dutch folklore and myths. It might be a place to start. Good luck! Pearl tells people tales of both John Henry and John de Conquer, how the latter came from Africa as an albatross and lived on plantations with the name of John, and tricked the masters into freeing slaves. Both folk heroes appear in many African American tales. Folklore in Books by Virginia Hamilton 
http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/bibs/folkficthamilton.htm
Albatross: Wide Area Cluster Computing
http://www.cs.vu.nl/albatross/
An Albatross is a cool, black-and-white, wide-area bird. The project is about wide-area programming. Many other projects in our research group have names of black-and-white animals (Orca, Panda, Das, Hawk, Magpie, Manta). Also, Albatrosses are featured in some ancient Dutch legends and myths. The magnificent birds, with a wing span of up to 2 meters (about 7 feet) for long inspired awe among sailors, who ascribed special powers to them, and killing an Albatross would bring bad luck. (In other stories albatrosses play a less glamorous though more humorous part).
Karen C.
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2) Where the Albatross Wanders, an article by BBC news. Facts about the albatross.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/904317.stm
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3) An audiotape
Tears of the Albatross ~ Tama's Putorino - Tawai Te Rangi - Maori origins
The Tape
Listening to a story is very different from simply reading it or looking at a picture book. While listening, we form our own pictures and feel the warm presence of the storyteller. Our storyteller - the kuia , the great-grandmother - is a special person with something precious to give.

These two stories have a depth and beauty about them, connecting children to the lasting qualities in the Maori cultural tradition. Hearing the wonderful, rich, grandmotherly voice also rekindles our respect for the depth of wisdom the elderly have to offer the young. In Maoridom, different tribes will appreciate the openness of the stories, allowing them to honour local customs when following up the stories.

A focused selection of songs accompany the stories. Lyrics in the book are easily learned and the music is pitched for children's voices. These simple songs also cover the virtues in the stories: loyalty, service, creativity and respect.

The Book
We have created an exciting, timely, new-format book to accompany this cassette - the Wisdom Book. In tune with an emerging trend, the Wisdom Book passes on traditional cultural wisdom and introduces children to the spiritual dimension of life in a non-religious way.

The Stories
Nga Roimata Toroa - Tears of the Albatross - is a traditional Maori story about two albatrosses who care for a tohunga (wise man). An old rascal has evil plans for the birds, but our heroes, the twins, ensure a happy ending. Nga Roimata Toroa is also a well-loved tukutuku panel design. The crafting of these traditional wall panels is described in fascinating detail in the accompanying Wisdom Book, together with fun scientific facts about the albatross, courtesy of the royal albatross colony in Dunedin. Aunty Tawai also passes down spiritual teachings about the virtues of loyalty and service.

Te Putorino a Tama - Tama's Putorino - is a delightful new story about a young boy's creativity in solving the problem of what to do about the ants who make their home in his putorino (flute). As Tama and his parents journey into the bush to retrieve the flute, native birds unobtrusively take us through the protocol of visiting a marae. This traditional protocol is described in detail in the accompanying Wisdom Book, together with facts about ants and spiritual teachings about the virtues of creativity and respect.
Side One (English)
1. Tears of the Albatross  
    (Includes songs Albatross, Loyalty and Service).
2. Tama's Putorino            
3. Song of the Ants
4. Song of Respect
5. Sounds of Nature

Side Two (Maori)
1. Nga Roimata Toroa  
    (me nga waiata: Rere Runga, Pumau Tonu e, me Mahi Pono mo Katoa).
2. Mea he Toroa
3. Te Putorino a Tama  
4. Waihanga Hanga Tanga
5. Whaka-ute
Available for sale at:
http://www.thesacredsite.com/children.htm
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4) Toroa, the Albatross - informational site with picture
Excerpt:
"The sailing ships used to encounter albatrosses while plying the westerly winds between latitudes 40 and 60 degrees, thus the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties came to be known as the albatross latitudes. At times they were hooked on fishing lines or shot with a cross bow or guns. One of James Cook's expeditions records the capture of albatrosses which ended up on the table. Ashore sealers and whalers evidently took eggs and even the birds themselves for food. The use of the skins for feather rugs may have produced an early nickname "cape sheep". Their webbed feet were converted into tobacco pouches, their bones into pipe stems, breast feathers into muffs and their beaks into paper clips.

The flesh was considered a great delicacy to Maori who preserved it the same way as mutton birds. From the bones they  carved spear tips, nose flutes and other artifacts. The secretions from the birds tubular nostrils were the "tears" of the albatross, weeping for its distant home, a motif often used in carving."
More at:
http://www.nzbirds.com/birds/albatrosswandering.html
More info:
Toroa: The Royal Albatross by Te Aorere Riddell. Published by Huia Publishers. ISBN 1877283894. Recommended retail price $12.95.
Book Description
“Every year, the albatross covers a distance of more than 190,000 km. This is equivalent to driving the entire length of New Zealand 84 times.”

With a wingspan of three meters, the Toroa, or Royal Albatross, can fly up to 115 km an hour. The Toroa lives for over 60 years, and spends 87% of its long life at sea.

Meet this amazing bird – an important part of New Zealand’s heritage – and discover how we can conserve it as a legacy for the future. Hard cover, 32 pages. Published in 2003.
More at:
http://www.pacificislandbooks.com/nznature.htm
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5) Resurrection in the Wind by Rick Steiner
Nearly wiped out by feather harvesters, the short-tailed albatross is now poised for what may be the bird comeback of all time.
Excerpt:
"On a somber day in November, 1987, ornithologist Hiroshi Hasegawa gazed out from Torishima Island into the deep blue waters of the subtropical Pacific. Years before, this tiny oceanic volcano 600 kilometers (370 mi.) south of Tokyo had been the primary nesting site for the short-tailed albatrosses that then numbered in the millions. Giants in the seabird world, they had converged here each winter through the ages..."
More at National Wildlife Federation
http://www.nwf.org/internationalwildlife/1998/albatros.html
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6) Book:
Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival by Carl Safina
"When the wind drops in late afternoon, Amelia, already hundreds of miles from land, rises on her own power, flapping more than she'd prefer..."
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
yIn this dazzling volume, Safina, a MacArthur award recipient, recounts his travels to remote portions of the northwest Hawaiian Islands to witness albatross breeding season, during which parent birds fly across entire oceans as much as 25,000 miles to hunt sufficient food to nourish their single chicks. Albatross survival, Safina (Song for the Blue Ocean) shows, is increasingly vulnerable to modern conditions; indeed, the shameful history of albatross exploitation, when the magnificent birds were all but exterminated in some areas for their valued eggs and feathers, is but an early chapter in the struggle against perils that now include entrapment in commercial fishing nets, ingesting plastic trash that washes ashore in vast quantities on their nesting islands and depletion of food stocks due to global warming. By turns rhapsodic, scolding and mystical, the book discusses issues that affect other seabirds, seals, sharks and sea turtles. But the albatross ("a great symphony of flesh, perception, bone, and feathers") remains its primary focus. Clinically minded readers may question Safina's tendency to psychologize animals or introduce mythological elements into his narrative, and some sections of the book resonate with more romantic passion than science. Still, Safina's encyclopedic knowledge and spirited prose provide a stunningly intimate portrait of an environment. (May 14)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description:
“One of the most delightful natural history studies in decades.” —The Boston Globe
Eye of the Albatross: Visions of Hope and Survival takes us soaring to locales where whales, sea turtles, penguins, and shearwaters flourish in their own quotidian rhythms. Carl Safina’s guide and inspiration is an albatross he calls Amelia, whose life and far-flung flights he describes in fascinating detail. Interwoven with recollections of whalers and famous explorers, Eye of the Albatross probes the unmistakable environmental impact of the encounters between man and marine life. Safina’s perceptive and authoritative portrait results in a transforming ride to the ends of the Earth for the reader, as well as an eye-opening look at the health of our oceans.
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7) Albatrosses by W.L.N. Tickell (book)
Excerpt:
Editorial Reviews
Albatrosses are long-lived seabirds that have long impressed those who travel the oceans, although this admiration has not prevented them from being killed in large numbers. They are famed for their supreme adaptations to the marine environment, breeding on remote islands and spending most of their lives at sea flying immense distances.Drawing on his own fieldwork and a comprehensive review of the literature, W.L.N. Tickell now presents the first comparative account of the albatross family. He explores albatross natural history from a geographic point of view, arranging the birds in four groups for convenience. He describes the various forms within each group, their distribution and breeding biology, as well as comparative treatments of moult, flight, behavior, and ecology. He concludes with a review of conservation and human attitudes toward albatrosses. His authoritative text is accompanied by numerous maps, tables, diagrams, and color photographs.
Product Description:
This authoritative volume is the first comparative account of the albatross family, famed for their supreme adaptations to the marine environment, for breeding on remote islands, and for spending most of their lives flying immense distances over the sea. The book includes maps, tables, diagrams, and color photographs to accompany full descriptions of the various forms of albatrosses and their distribution, behavior, and ecology.Copublished with Pica Press.
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8) Indiscrete Thoughts, an essay by Gian - Carlo Rota
Excerpt:
"Myths come in two kinds: working myths and wilting myths. Working myths are the bedrock of civilization, they are what college students in the sixties used to call "ultimate reality." We could not function without the solid support that we get from our working myths. We are not aware of our working myths.

Sooner or later, every working myth begins to wilt. We can tell that a myth is wilting as soon as we are able to express it in words. It then turns into a belief, to be preserved and defended.

A wilting myth is an albatross hanging from our necks. Only on rare occasions do we summon the courage to discard a wilting myth; more often, we hang on to a wilting myth to the very end. If anyone dares question any of our wilting myths, we will lash out and label him elitist," "subversive," "reactionary," "irrational," "cynical...... nihilistic," obscurantist." We will seize on some incorrect but irrelevant detail as an excuse to dismiss an entire argument. Most discussions, whether in science, in philosophy, in politics or in everyday conversation, are thinly veiled attacks or defenses of some wilting myth.

Eventually, a wilting myth gets dropped by all but the hard-liners..."
More at:
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/books/indiscrete/intro.shtml
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9) Feast of the Albatross, an article from Scribbly Gum
http://abc.net.au/science/scribblygum/July2001/default.htm
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10) A Creation Story
The Great Albatross
Excerpt:
Once, long ago when the skies crackled the lightning and the seas rolled with waves as tall as mountains, the world we know was born.

The night sky twinkled with 10,000,000 stars, and the day sky was alive with the brilliance of a close star, the Sun. Sunbeams reflected in clouds that shone like polished mirrors. The Earth was covered with a beautiful blanket of swirling water, lovely but fierce.

In all this beauty, nothing moved, save the sky and sea. There were no fishes, no whales, and no dolphins in the waters. There was no land, and so no humans or tiger or lizards or bugs. And in the sky, no butterflies, no bees, and no birds, save one.

The only creature who existed was Atoya, the Great Albatross. She who would birth and mother the world we know. Her great body was longer than a football field and her mighty wings spread wide as a city. She was born of lightning and seafoam on brilliant day long, long ago. It was when the lightning struck the sea and raised foam high into the air. The foam vibrated with the energy of the Universe and as it dropped back toward the sea, it took form and became a gigantic glistening Albatross....
The rest of the story is at:
http://www.spiralgoddess.com/CreationStory.html
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11) Fables from the Garden (Kolowalu Book by Leslie Ann Hayashi, Kathleen Wong Bishop
Product Description:
Come into the garden and hear a story! Children will delight in this charming collection of fables featuring plants and animals often seen in Hawai‘i gardens. A lone orchid finds friendship among roses; a kind albatross teaches a young frog about the joy of discovery; two greedy mynahs learn about sharing; a lazy blue ginger flower is encouraged to blossom. As a good fable should, each of these wondrous tales offers a valuable lesson at the end---but it's one that goes down with a smile.
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12) Albert the Albatross (I Can Read Book 1) by Hoff, Syd.
Albert the albatross loves living near the ocean. One foggy day he gets lost while flying and ends up in the city, far far away from his ocean home. Will Albert ever find his way back to the sea? Albert finds his way home to the ocean with the help of a lady tourist and her hat. Color illustrations accompany the text of this beginning reader.
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13) Little Albatross by Michael Morpurgo.
Book Description
A dramatic, lyrical story brought alive by vivid and intense illustrations.
The last snows of winter are melting away and Little Albatross sits snug in the warmth of Mother Albatross’s feathers. He grows bigger and stronger until one day Mother and Father Albatross go fishing together, leaving Little Albatross alone for the first time. Will they return in time to save him from the killer bird that is watching, waiting?
This exciting, beautifully told story with its stunning illustrations will delight all animal lovers.
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(This web page updated 12/9/05; 6/23/06)